perfect
oh
2020 regular meeting of the haywood
county board of commissioners
and our first order business will be our
pledge and after that i'm going to ask
for a moment of silence uh pastor josh
couldn't be here tonight
and uh and i'll ask for a moment of
silence if y'all would remember our
country during that time so if we just
please stand for the pledge
god
thank you
okay next our next order of businesses
are our public hearings and we have none
tonight
and the next is our public comment
session and is there is there anyone
here that would like to address
the board at this time
okay seeing no one i'll i'll close that
portion of our
meeting kevin i just want to make sure
the front door is unlocked right
i mean people could come in okay all
right thank you
okay yeah i just didn't know i knew we
had it locked
yeah it's rare we don't have public
comment but
it's cold cold day yeah i wasn't saying
that it's a joke i was never really
asking
seriously
our next order of business is
constituent concerns and
does anyone have any constituent
concerns they want to speak to
anything call me the only thing i might
make mention of is we had the north carolina association of
county commissioners legislative goals
conference last week
and i do want to report that on general
government our number one legislative
goal as
county commissioners all across the
state was
i'll read it seek legislation funding
and
other efforts to expand digital
infrastructure and broadband capability
to the unserved and underserved areas
and residents of the state and i did
submit that goal
a few months ago and apparently there
were several others but that was our
number one goal
to uh to have our association lobby the
legislature to
try to go ahead and secure more funding
for areas like haywood county that
have some huge obstacles for uh uh
broadband uh abilities so
hopefully we can go somewhere there were
pushing a little bit on that and
hopefully we can uh with the latest tier
designation that we got i think we'll be
in a little more favorable position so we're still trying
keep trying yeah that's great that's
great
okay you got anything brand new yeah
okay i guess just to add to that i think
we know one legislator used to sit right
down here
so hopefully we can make some phone
calls to him and see if he can push for
that as well but
i do i did have a couple i got with mr
morehead on
one of the ones i may have guaran
address uh when he gives us an update
but i got a call about
the vaccinations and if if we couldn't
put out some kind of a list
so they would know where they're at on
that list so i'll have garen address
that if he don't mind when he comes up
and gives us an update and any other uh
concern i have we've already addressed
okay thank you man you have anything
kirk i don't have anything
different anything the only thing i've
heard was about the vaccinations and i
think garen's going to weigh in on that
in a little bit
and so we'll hear about that then
okay okay all right
and i don't really have anything so
our next order of business is
administrative agency reports and
presentations
and we have our uh health director garen
bratis here tonight to talk about that the coven 19 update
and welcome garen appreciate you coming
out tonight
vaccine update all right okay
so today we finished up our
original allotment of 600 doses of
moderna that we received
we had a small clinic there at the
health department i think now we do have
about 20 doses left over from today from
some no-shows and things like that
so going forward today we
accepted a transfer from haywood
regional medical
of 1675 doses of pfizer
our plan is to try to move through that
literally in the next two days
so we're going to plan a drive-through
clinic tomorrow at the fairgrounds for
the first 675
and then we'll have a larger clinic the
following day to try to move through
a thousand um that being said there was
a
um one of the comments that may have
come up
is kind of through the list of what
we're doing so
we've now taken our list we're looking
at our 75 and older and we're truly
going down the list from the date stamps
of when people
registered so that we're getting to
those who registered first
and then work our way back so hopefully
those that have been waiting the longest
will be able to get the notification to
show up to these two clinics
one of the other things that has come up
with the state
is north carolina's fell behind
compared to some of the other states and
the amount of vaccine that we've
distributed
so we are expecting another shipment of
moderna this week
possibly tomorrow the plan is going to
be
from going forward with the state is to
have seven days
wednesday will be your first day ended
up on tuesday that means
whatever we're allocated they're asking
us to try to
push it out in one week and have it all
into cvms
so that we are not hit on our second
shipment this is how they're going to
monitor
how much the counties are doing so we
are going to receive
900 first doses this week and we will
have to plan
now that we've taken this from the
hospital through literally
friday through tuesday in some way
so we're going to start with trying to
figure into our system
3000 of those were over 75 so hopefully
this will get us through a large part of
that older group
in a quick amount of time and then we'll
move into our next phases which will be
the 65 to 75.
some of those have received some vaccine
and have been worked into what we're
doing
but we are specifically targeting that
75 and older
that has been on the list the longest to
try to get them through
i've taken a lot of phone calls and i
know that's
who we need to get to and we don't want
to do this in some sort of randomized
lottery type thing we want to truly go
in order of how people registered um
that being said if you've got any i know
you had some concerns uh
go ahead and just one that i might get
you to touch on karen
i know that the question it was asked to
me is why we couldn't put out a list
and i understand that we don't find out
from the state
until hours before we're actually
getting that so do you mind to explain
that a little bit
uh hopefully with some of the meetings
that have occurred today that i was on
with the state they are going to give us
a little better notice
of how much vaccine and when to expect
it so that we can plan ahead
that was one of the big things that was
discussed is
not knowing how much we're going to get
in the shipment and exactly when the
shipments can arrive so they are
planning on trying to
come up with a very consistent way of
doing this
how much vaccine like i said we receive
depends on how much we administer in a
seven day time period
each week as far as our list are you
referring to people being on the list
and when they could expect it
yeah the question was you know it was an
elderly couple they said hey we would
like to know
where we're at on that list if it's
going to be weeks out if it's going to
be this week
if we knew where we were at then we
could plan accordingly and the other
question was
you know hey can we come as a couple and
i think we're encouraging that as well
uh yes we are accepting anyone that
comes as a couple so that uh to make it
easier on people to be able to move and
come to these clinics so that's not
that's something we've already been
doing
and yes we are gonna we are planning
having a meeting uh
friday of this week and one of the
things we want to discuss is moving
through the phases and what we're
looking at is timelines
and be able to track that with how how
we've registered
i've uh had some calls from the schools
when are you going to get to our
employees and things like that and so
we're starting to develop those plans
looking just a few weeks ahead
of possibly sending out school nurses
and teams and saying all right we're
going to hit this school this school
on these days and and operate in those
fashions and then look at other
essential businesses and how we reach
out to those businesses and give them a
heads up
your time is coming in the next two
weeks or i think it's going to require
some weekly press releases
to kind of keep people informed of how
we move through these phases and what
they
can expect
how about our employees who deal with
the public where do they fall on the
list
well as far as public health we've
gotten quite a few of them done uh we
have worked with some of the social
workers that go into
in-home visits and got them vaccinated
so a lot of those
front-line workers we've got now one
thing we do have to get caught up on
is our law enforcement we
originally had set tried to get them
earlier on but when the state
changed some of the criteria and they
actually moved them to a date of the
20th of this month to start
we will be working them through one of
the things we run into with anything
with a vaccine is
within your vials you'll have extra
doses or at the end of the day we have
some doses left over
we've compiled lists of law enforcement
and others that we can call and say can
you be
at this clinic in 30 minutes we've got
10 15 extra doses and we need to give
them out so
it's easier than trying to reach out to
the public when we have lists provided
of county employees and such as law
enforcement that we can call and say hey
can you be here within half an hour so
well i would just encourage if there are
extras that if we could get the county
employees that actually meet with the
public
and even in this building and and other
buildings that may actually engage with
the public
so we could keep our offices open here
they might feel a little more
comfortable about serving the public
here
absolutely yeah we and we have taken we
have lists of
facilities and maintenance we have we
have a multiple list throughout the
county government that we can call on
and say hey
can you either be at the health
department or at the fairgrounds yes
okay thank you garen i was on a
conference call last week with the
governor and the speaker of the house
tim moore and
both of them said across the state there
had been counties
that had actually wasted vaccine they
had maybe thought out
700 doses and only 680 people showed up
or 650
and they've stressed to us to
you know communicate to y'all to have a
standby list
maybe if you've got 700 people scheduled
to come
and only you know 650 show up well
you've got 50 doses there and
it may kind of go along with what
commercial kirkpatrick
noted there but do you have a standby
list somebody maybe can get there within
30 minutes or
we do what what do you do you do have
that okay we do we do have a standby
list
and like at our last drive-through
clinic one of the things we did is we followed what we had remaining of
moderna we can hold it for 30 days after
thought in refrigeration
so as we would go through the clinic and
we saw
more and more coming in we could run
back pull it from our refrigerator
have vials there ready to go and then at
the end of the day we had
20 some 30 some pre-loaded shots ready
to go
and that's when we called on law
enforcement from
different agencies and what not to come
up so that no vaccine was wasted
good yeah we don't want to waste any
stuff
it is a little bit of kind of working
through the clinic
literally i kind of walk in lines
between the cars and count people
in the cars and call back towards the
end of the day and say okay how are we
looking things like this and kind of
give an update
so that we don't want to we try not to
schedule more people obviously than what
we have in vaccine but we always want to
make sure that we've got enough there
i'd rather us have to call a waiting
list at the end of the day and
bring people in then definitely we've
not wasted any
right good so
first of all let me say that i was on my
first group conference call with
other commissioners from other counties
and they were in
all of what we were able to do and
i don't know what you're hearing from
your side
but you know this is the first rollout
that i've ever been a part of it even in
a removed level
and of all the people that reached out
to me last week
no one had anything negative to say
and i think that's really to be
congratulated for great leadership
and boots on the ground because this is
a it's a huge
undertaking to have a drive-through and
these other commissioners were saying
they didn't have
the manpower they didn't have the
vaccines they didn't have a location
where they could do it because you know
we have a great facility at the
fairgrounds and
so that's what i really wanted to say to
you is that and to all the people that
are participating
whether you're pro-vaccine or against
the vaccine
to see all of our county agencies
working together
collectively and you know 10 or 15
people go to the effort to say
it was everybody was in a good mood and
it ran very smoothly
and how much they appreciate it i just
want to say thank you for that because
that could have been a real
interesting um orientation for a new
commissioner for it not to run smoothly
so i appreciate that very much
well i appreciate it thank you um it
will be evolving and changing because we
will
now that we've started with the
drive-through clinics as we enter into
second nose and now that we're working
with two different vaccines
there will be that planning and
coordinating of the second dose and
we'll have to
do large we'll have to do large
drive-through type situations to be able
to administer those doses but
the good thing about that is is all the
paperwork which is the hardest part of
this will be done
because those people will receive the
first vaccine so literally it's just
getting them through making sure they
know the date and the place to be
and then just giving them the second
dose garen i appreciate it i think you
all have set the bar high
on how to do this and i and i've i agree
with jennifer i've heard the same thing
of you know other communities trying to
figure out how to do it and the best way
to do it and
i feel like we're on the cutting edge of
the way you should do it
and i really appreciate the volunteers
and all the agencies that have come
together
and and to focus on just getting it kind
of getting it done if you will
so i appreciate that um and
congratulations on that i know
you know it took a lot it takes a lot of
planning to set up what y'all have done
and everything
i was just wondering on the moderna uh
when
uh how many shots do you did you get of
that or do you want to say and when will
you be administering that
well with moderna that's what we've
originally the health departments have
been receiving
so we up to this point we had received
1600
initial doses another nine is expected
to arrive tomorrow
and we have in our freezer 900
second doses just for second dose okay
so that's
currently where we see it so we finished
up the 1600
minus 20 today we have 900 more coming
tomorrow
and then we have 900 for our second dose
already are ready
okay and then when you when you go get
it to health department how long does it
take to thaw
you just leave it outside if i was out
in a certain number of minutes or is
there
i was just curious what no uh you can
thaw it
inside a refrigerator and it's supposed
to thaw in two and a half hours we found
out at the drive-through clinic it takes
about four
in a refrigerator but you can thought at
room temperature
and you can do it in an hour oh okay
now there again tomorrow and thursday
we'll be working with pfizer which is a
little bit trickier
yeah that's the ultra low cold and it
has to be mixed but
the hospital since we've taken this from
the hospital in this transfer
they are going to provide their
pharmacist there they're going to
maintain the vaccine be watching it over
for us they're even going to be doing
some of the loading of the syringes
for us because it is a little bit more
delicate and since they've
had this for weeks now they're used to
it and so they're
the hospitals really going to come in
and give us a big helping hand
of getting through the next two days
okay well that's another great
partnership that we have then with the
hospital with them coming on board and
doing that
and this and this just really shows how
hard it is for you to do what you've got
to do
you've got to get it there and thaw it
out it's got to be ready when people
drive up
so you've got to have enough and get
enough thought without thawing too much
to where
you you don't want to waste it and then
you know you've got to get it
administered and everything and then
they've got to come back
three you know two to three weeks or
four weeks later and get that other dose and so it's i can see
the logistic nightmare and y'all are
really handling it well i think
gary the the biggest hurdle in it for us
and public health has worked really well
and
our ems has been great to partner with
and and carrying a heavy load with this
and helping us plan this
the paperwork in the end because
everything has to go into that cvms
uh tool for the state until we have it
entered there we could put the shark
the shots in people's arms all day the
state doesn't see it
they don't see it until it's in that
system so that's that's the hardest part
of the process
right there well people need to realize
is after they get the shot you guys are
doing a ton of paperwork on just
every person that comes through there
and i mean it's just a
one person you know there's no telling
how much time you spend
per person doing you know i mean if you
added it all up per person and
everything to see how
you know how how enormous the the effort
is and how successful
you all been at it so it's great what
y'all are doing
see dr david's arrived so i'll turn it
over to him
welcome dr jamin hello everybody
um it's a pleasure to be in front of a
quiet crowd so i know you guys
appreciate that
so the good news uh is that haywood
county currently as of today
out of 100 counties in north carolina
were the 75th lowest
in terms of rate of new cases the bad
news is that all 100 counties are in the
red
and every in although we're down we're
still quite high
well more than the spike that we had in
july and august
as of today 2940 cases
so far in the pandemic and if you look
back to august 10th
which was really the end of that summer
spike we've had a 400 percent
increase in the number of cases at that
time we were averaging about two to
three new cases per day
uh we got up as high as 50 or 60.
we're now around 37 38.
the first 1100 cases by the end of
november
the next 1100 by the end of december and
we've roughly added about 600 to 700
this month already but the rate does
seem to be slowing and i think we all
anticipated
10 to 14 days after an event or a
holiday is when we would begin to see
the peak
so that certainly matches up with
christmas new year's
so that's all good stuff the hospital
got quite stretched
a week or so ago it's come down just a
little bit as well so that's all all
good news
i would also indicate that the first
half of the month
the long-term care facilities had out of
roughly 550 cases they had 47 so about
eight to nine percent of the cases so
most of it's in the community
and in fact in the past week they've
only been seven new cases in the
long-term care facilities so again that peak as well
a little bit of a disappointing note
there are now
we've been tracking for the last little
bit the number of people who aren't
answering our calls aren't willing to
cooperate with health department
and there are currently 48 of those
folks around
we hope that they've taken it upon
themselves to isolate
and we hope that they've taken it upon
themselves to notify close contacts but
we don't know there have been about
130 or 140 of these folks
so far most of them over the last couple
of months
i know that garen filled you guys in on
vaccinations but just a couple of
comments there
we are tracking uh from the time that
vaccinations started
in terms of the case counts i don't
expect that we'll see much change in
that for at least several months still
you know once a person gets their first
shot it takes about
six weeks through the second shot and
then two weeks after the second
shot before they've reached maximum
immunity after the first shot
the thought is with the pfizer in the
modern vaccines that you get about 50
percent
of what you're going to get but we've
already had cases of people who've got
their first shot
and lo and behold before their second
shot they get sick and test positive
so we know that it's still possible and
we know that even after a person gets
their maximum immunity for the second
shot
again at 95 percent effectiveness that
still five percent
will get sick so it's still possible and
i think
uh although people are we're really
pleased that people are as interested in
being vaccinated as they seem to be
i think it would be a mistake to think
that that's the end-all and be-all
and again if we think in terms of the
swiss cheese analogy
that vaccine is a really important slice
but it's not
going to do it all on its own and that's
the other reason that it's really
important that
we keep get our case counts down because
the lower the case counts are
the more effective the vaccine will be
think we've had maybe gary touched on
this i'm sorry if i'm repeating but
i think probably somewhere between 3 000
and 3 500 people have now been
vaccinated in the county
yeah somewhere between 3 000 and 3 500.
on top of that are the staff and
residents of long-term care facilities
since that's being handled through a
different prong
we don't have the numbers yet that we
hope to be able to get out of the cvms
system but as garen indicated
there have been some challenges with
that so thirty-five third
somewhere between three thousand and
thirty five hundred um through the
health department and the hospital
some amount of that on top of that with
the long-term care facility staff and
residents so probably if we sort of just
estimate
probably close to ten percent maybe
eight to ten percent of haywood county
has been vaccinated if we take those three
thousand cases that's another five
percent
of people who've been infected so um
if you also add in the fact that perhaps
there are people who didn't get tested
when they got sick
or had an asymptomatic infection uh you
know we're probably in the 10 to 15
maybe 20 percent
of the county has been exposed so that's
good
and as we continue to vaccinate that
number obviously obviously goes up
that's the short and sweet of it i think
when we were when i was last here at
least with garen we said that we'd be
coming back in mid-january and
we'd see what would happen and i think
unfortunately what was predicted is
exactly what happened
we saw a spike after christmas it never
came down
we see a spike after new year's
hopefully it is starting to come down
and that would be really great and as we
vaccinate more that will
hopefully even out so that by summer
perhaps fall we may be in a position in
our community to uh
to really be able to take a breath and
relax a little bit but i think it's that
kind of a time frame still
so happy to entertain any questions
i was just curious how many cases of flu
have we had
there've been very little flu in north
carolina and in fact in the country
in the week that ended december 19th if
i can remember this correctly there were
five thousand specimens submitted to the
state lab for flu evaluation
there's a there's a surveillance network
around the state of practices and
hospitals that
weekly submit data to the state and they
follow that
out of those 5000 there was one positive
flu case
that was the week of that was the end of
the week of december 19th
the end of the week of i think january
10th they had another 3 000 specimens
and out of that i think there were three
so this has been just you know it's just
thank goodness not had
any flu around yet flu tends to peak
late january february so we'll see if
that actually comes to pass
the other thing that they're watching is
that all the other respiratory viruses
in the winter
are all way down and uh
in australia of course they're six
months ahead of us right
they um have really contained their
covent they had a very very very light
flu season
they had a very light respiratory virus
season
now that they're starting back into that
again those are all coming back with a
vengeance
so we may or may not have that to look
forward to but that's all the way for
next year we'll worry about next year next year let's get through
this right now i just think it shows
that wearing a mask
social discs and washing your hands is
it keeps the flu away too
probably so yeah there's there's lots of
conjecture about why this has happened
but no doubt though this stuff works i
think we know this works and i think
if you just even again if you look at
the trends of the cases that we saw
through christmas through new year's
it's all the same thing that we've been
seeing all along you know gatherings
somebody there pre-symptomatic people
not being as careful as they can be and
lo and behold whammo
and that's that just continues to be the
case
i think it's really important that
people continue to be vigilant because
like i said before if we keep the case
counts down
the vaccine just to get speed gets to be
even more effective
and when i say that we know the vaccine
will protect individuals
but to protect the community we need
enough individuals
and i think you know if we want to reach
our goal of once again being able to
safely gather together
it's going to take that community
immunity
to to really take hold so we're on our
way that's the good news
just urge people to sort of stay the
course and keep vigilant for now a
little bit longer
anything particularly um
so on the one that needs two shots
if the people don't come back and get
the second one other than just having a
reduced amount of immunity
is there any negative side effects to
only having the one shot
on the too short shot protocol yeah no negative effects it's just they're
not going to be as protected as
they would be otherwise i would imagine
there'll be some that don't make it for
the second trip
there may be um and we're running into
the situation again of people who've
been vaccinated got their first shot
then they get sick when do they get
their second shot
and i think it bears noting that it
although
you know the pfizer has to be second
shot on 21 days of the modern or 28 or
vice versa
there's nothing written in stone that if
it becomes day 29 or day 30 or day 35 it
still works
so we're trying to figure out how to
manage those sorts of people
but but the answer to your question is
there's no real downside to it
i noticed that santa's not here here
tonight but
hope santa's okay got their vaccine so
thank you very much okay thank you
appreciate it great job
our next order of business is the
consent agenda does anyone have any
questions on the consent agenda
i was i'll be honest with you greg i was
just curious can you
maybe tell us a little bit about the tax
did you come up i was just
i was reading your report and i know um
it's is are the numbers coming in
about like last year since it's you know
you since through january 6 would you
have to know that
sure um just a little information here
you know we we finished december at
72.91 and
last year we were at 76.24 so quite a
bit of difference there
what we're finding is that the mail is
30 days behind i mean we're getting
payments in
today for example that have a november
postmark
you know 15 15 21 days out
so last year we finished
this january at 92.29 percent
as of today at five o'clock we're 90.25
percent
so we've we've made up some of that
lost in december that first week of january uh for example we we just got
evergreen's
tax payment in today was 1.3 million
dollars
and it was postmarked december the 10th
so you know a lot of this is the post
offices
is behind but as was
right now we've collected 36 million 534
dollars
our our total was 4 40 million
400 so we've got a remaining balance of
about 3.9 million
i think with eight or nine days left
here in
the month of january we should be
right back to where our percentage was
last year which
actually was one of the best percentages
ever
in the in the county if you look at the
eight year average
in in december for example the eight
year average was like
73.84 percent
we we finished 72.9 so we really
as far as that eight year average we
weren't that far off
we had the highest percentage collected
in october this year we had the highest
percentage in november
it's just december i i just think the
mail
the up the post office is you know i
mean
today we we did almost 1.5 million of
course
1.3 was evergreen but we'll take it
so i feel strongly that you know even
during this pandemic that
there are people paying their taxes we
haven't
really used a lot of enforced
collections at this
time we will be sending out the
delinquent bills
next month in february so i feel better
you know i was a little concerned at the
end of december seeing about a three and
a half four percent difference
but that first this first 10 days of
working days in january we've really made a difference so we're
not that far
off right okay um
yeah that's just the mail i mean yeah
i've seen that low number and i thought
there was probably
a good explanation for it and it makes
sense i've noticed i've gotten some
well packages especially because you
know you know
amazon prime isn't amazon prime anymore
so
it's just you know it's just and then
you've got
you know everybody's mailing christmas
cards and then christmas packages and i
can see how that would be
so i mean it's 30 days sometimes i mean
it
so yeah but i'd be glad to answer any
other questions
concerning
you know we hope that we can continue to have these high percentages and we're
working with people
i want to stress the importance of
communication with the office
i mean we we don't know that how you've
been affected by covet or we don't know
what your situation is
without you communicating with our
office
and when you do that then we're able to
work with you
or to try to put together a plan that is
win-win for
the taxpayer as well as the county and
this you know we waited on people
outside
the front doors from march to september
and and now we're back to waiting on
them outside again
for the moment and one interesting uh
point was you know we installed the
drop box outside we've had almost seven
hundred thousand dollars
dropped in that box instead of people
coming into our office
so it was well worth i think the the
expense that associated with that and
people have
really taken advantage of it you know we
didn't have any long lines
i mean we had one day of the hall being
lined up
other than that we we really haven't
experienced
a large wait time and so i think that's
we're very fortunate there
but we we are waiting on people outside
again and uh
you know it's what it is do what you got
to do
okay okay well thanks for that update
greg i appreciate it
thank you my pleasure does anybody have
any other questions for the consent
agenda
okay i'll entertain the motion we
approve the consent agenda has presented
is there a second second okay all those
favorite indicators saying aye
okay it's unanimous okay we'll move on
to our regular agenda
is the next order of business and number
one is to request approval to purchase
led lights
from ced waynesville in the amount of
twenty one thousand eighty two dollars
to be paid from fiscal year 2021
budgeted funds
for the conversion of all lighting in
the justice center
we have our operations director chris
boyd here welcome chris
good evening chairman commissioners i am
here to request
as the chairman read 21 000
and some change to replace all the four
asset structures
in the justice center with the led
structures
i'd like to to give you a little history
on on what we're doing there that shows
the return on our investment
a couple of years ago we were fortunate
to get
some money granted to haywood county not
through our budget
but through the department of
environmental assistance which used to
be the state energy department
to do energy audits but they were able
to do two buildings for haywood county
we chose the justice center and the law
enforcement center
so in those two audits they looked at
everything that was
energy usage in the facilities and in
both cases
the number one recommendation for
lowering
the energy usage was conversion to led
lots
so we we wanted to move forward with
that last year's budget was a little bit
different
wasn't able to to ask for those funds
but this year we have
funds for the justice center and for the
law enforcement center
you are not seeing the law enforcement
center because that dollar amount does
not cross the 20 000
threshold so we submitted for that today
as well to the county manager for
approval
so based on the energy audit we're
looking at
about fifteen hundred fixtures in the
justice center
ninety thousand square foot facility so
the the audit
projected we would save an annual or we
would have an annual savings of fifteen
thousand dollars
on our electric bill for this conversion
so based on that uh we're going to have
a payback of about one and a half years
of this twenty one thousand dollar
investment
so just to to give you the same number
for the law enforcement center
uh the the cost there is only about
eighty five hundred dollars
uh it's only fifty around 55 000 square
feet
it's served by duke energy so
we got a 6900 rebate from duke energy
for that facility
so therefore it's only costing the 8
500.
we will realize about
one year payback at that facility for
our
8 500 investment so as we continue to
move forward that's something that we
want to look at
to to try to save money in the county
budget
if we can move forward with these two
and it's likely in next year's budget
we'll be
requesting the next largest facility we
have at hhsa
for converging to led lots okay so you
might have any questions
i know that's a lot of numbers quickly
and just a brief
you know brief summary but uh questions
i'm happy to answer those
i'll just excellent payback good work
there i mean
anytime we can save that kind of money
it's well worth spending the money up
front so
good job i know i personally at my business my air
lights have been up there fluorescent
they've been up for 30 years and
last year i replaced them with leds all
of them
and i could the lighting was better and
more uniform
and and i even noticed i noticed a
difference in my electric bill you know
when it came
so it's it pays for itself for sure
the lighting certainly makes a
difference if you have an opportunity um
go through our parking deck at night and
see the difference that those led lights make there we just
recently completed that project
right yeah that's that's a great
innovation i know you were involved with
the
led lighting in the arena down at the
fairgrounds and it just
it's just made such a huge difference
the lighting's better the the power
bills
much much less and it's just a win-win
not only that it helps the power company because you
know they don't have to generate as much
power to make those things burn
so it's a win win-win for everybody
when we try to replace any existing
fixture in any structure with
led if there's a fixture problem for
you know 10 to 15 maybe 18
more in cost you can replace that
fixture with led
so we even though it's one at a time we
do that in each facility when we need to
replace the
right to fixture everything over do you
know what we're going to use
in-house staff we have
as our interim facilities director tim
sisk he's a licensed electrician
we have a couple of other folks that are
electrician knowledgeable and have been
able to help with this
we spent all at all converting the
parking deck probably
five whole days but we had to do it
intermittently and
as we had time between work orders so
for this facility at 90 000 square foot
1500 fixtures
don't be surprised if it takes us you
know 30 45 days to get through that
process
a few at a time we can't dedicate the
staff every single day
and the longevity on those lots is much
different far longer than a fluorescent
yes the balls will last um
at least twice as long and sometimes
more than that
any other questions for chris i'll
entertain a motion we approve
item two of the regular agenda so moved
is there a second any other discussion all those in
favor
signify by saying aye you want to post
okay that's unanimous thank you chris
our next order of business is
appointments
i'll turn it over to brian go ahead
brian you can do did i miss one
i'm sorry i checked that on the why
okay so okay item two is to request
approval of the resolution of the
haywood county board of commissioners
authorizing the negotiation of an
installment financing contract
not to exceed two million dollars in
providing for certain
other related matters we have our
interim finance director kristen owen
sorry kristen didn't mean to jump over
you there that's okay
i wouldn't have mined it at all but
anyway um
we have a quite lengthy resolution here
and i'll just summarize it for you
it's to give author authorization to
bryant and myself to negotiate the
installment contract
for the um school administration
building
and to submit application to the local
government commission for approval they
have to approve of any
debt transactions also to retain special
counsel
and financial advisor for this
transaction
and to provide notice of public hearing
anybody have any any questions for
christian kristin
just to shine a light a little more on
the public hearing that will be at the
february first meeting
uh we we did a slight rule change a
couple of months ago to where
you don't have to vote for call to
public hearing we're still following the
same timeline
for for this item uh it will be in the
mountaineer
tomorrow uh and we'll have it at the
meeting on
february first at the nine o'clock
meeting okay
and this way it speeds it up so we're
not holding up projects
especially projects that are time
sensitive which most of them are
is any other questions about it
pretty routine
i'll entertain a motion we approve uh
number item number two of the regular
agenda
so moved their second any other discussion at all
okay all those in favor indicate by
saying aye okay
unanimous thank you christian kristen
okay now brian you can go sorry this is
under appointments and uh the first one
is to request approval and appointment
of james rogers
to the clyde planning board thank you mr
chairman
we have an email from joy garland at
clyde the town board of aldermen are
requesting an appointment of
james rogers to the planning board he'd
previously served as an alternative to
the board
this is for a full member
appointment
i'll entertain a motion we approve we
need to approve these separately right
okay i'll entertain the motion that we
approve james rogers to the clyde
uh planning board etj so moved is there
a second
there was a second okay okay all those
in favor signify by saying aye okay
the next one is appointment of myself to
the haywood healthcare foundation board
of trustees
and to the investment committee pursuant
to section 6b of the restricted fund
management services agreement
also as a reappointment of of
commissioner kirkpatrick to the foundation board of trustees
my appointment's necessary because of
the seat vacated by julie davis
when she retired and we're reappointing
kirk grant
she she's going to stay on the board in
a different capacity but not in this seat that she previously
occupied
and we're also reappointing kirk okay
anybody have any questions on that kirk
you want to do it
yeah i'll do that okay
hurt kind of shepherd us through these
hospital things
he's very familiar with all that
i'll entertain a motion we approve item
two of appointments
these are second
okay any other discussion
all those in favor indicate by saying
aye aye okay anyone opposed
case unanimous and then number three of
appointments
brian the the next is appointment
of john denton to the center pigeon fire
department to the firefighter relief
fund
he'll be taking a position formerly held
by cody parton
cody has resigned that position with
center pigeon so this will be a
mr denton's
spot he currently serves as the deputy
fire chief of the department
okay case anybody have any questions on
that
i'll entertain a motion we approve item
three of appointments
some move second okay all in favor
indicate by saying aye
okay anyone opposed okay then number four brian go ahead uh
the next is is a little bit of
reorganization
from the smoky mountain event center to
have staggered terms
so the first is an appointment of two
people vanessa james and patricia blake
those are for three-year terms miss
james actually works in the craft world
she enjoys
being able to organize events and
showcase local artists
she thinks that tourism is priority but
would also like to have things for
the residents here miss blake
has served the community for over 35
years with a family-owned food truck
she's familiar with the fairgrounds and
wants to help continue it to be
successful the
reappointment of jonathan jackson and
vicki reese
are for two-year terms those are simply
to have those stagger terms that i
mentioned and then edward bryant and
benjamin wilder are one-year terms and
those are reappointments
okay and uh tommy you're on that board
is this was this
the board's recommendation yes this was
just to do some housekeeping to get our
uh
continuity back in our board staggers
they were all going to come to you at
the same time so we we finally we've
worked hard to get there and keep that continuity so
yes that's what we were trying to achieve
okay i appreciate you doing i remember i
tried to do that one time and i i i
didn't succeed
so thank you and i will make a motion and we approve
those okay
is there a second second okay
all in favor say aye okay
and that we can do that for all three
right
sixth commissioner
tell she's patting her food over there
okay we don't have a closed session
she need to come up and say thank you need to come up and say anything
[Laughter]
mr chairman before we digress too far i
want to make a comment about the consent
agenda
i don't know if how many of you noticed
this but uh item number five on the
consent agenda
i guess dole teague really worked he saw
that grant
available from arnold schwarzenegger
yeah and there is a letter from arnold
schwarzenegger included in our packet
from
university southern california
schwarzenegger institute
and it's a very interesting letter
his first paragraph said the united
states gave me everything i have
and i believe it's my duty to pay the
kindness of this country every day of my
life
everything i achieved my bodybuilding
success my movie roles my investments my
governorship my family would have been
impossible
anywhere but america and there's about
four or five paragraphs that continues
with the same theme so
he don't take saw this he made that
offer his
personal foundation money and there were
several counties across the nation
uh put in for this and doyle
is to be commended for going after those
funds and it's going to help
fund 11 poll workers uh for our
elections so uh
my hat's off to dolteag for for pursuing
that in robbie enwan and also mr
schwarzenegger
so yeah and i do i would do
i appreciate you pointing that out tommy
doyle had emailed me or texted me last
night
you know making sure that i understood
everything and i thanked him for what he
had done to look out for
the county to get the grant you know i
mean those grants are out there and
you know that this is something a county
employee that works in the department
that department elections
that saw it and went after it so we
appreciate that
and the the election this past election
was one of the hardest for i guess
election workers to work in with covid
and then everything else that's been
going on so we appreciate the our
election board
staying on top of things and and looking
for ways to help her community so
i appreciate you pointing that out does
anybody else have anything else
tonight there's no closed session so
i'll entertain a motion that we adjourn
second attack okay y'all in favor say
aye
okay we're adjourned and i hope everyone
stays safe thank you